Claiming Crimea

Russias long-standing claims to Crimea date back to the eighteenth-century reign of Catherine II. Historian Kelly ONeill has written the first archive-based, multi-dimensional study of the initial quiet conquest of a region that has once again moved to the forefront of international affairs. ONeill traces the impact of Russian rule on the diverse population of the former khanate, which included Muslim, Christian, and Jewish residents. She discusses the arduous process of establishing the empires social, administrative, and cultural institutions in a region that had been governed according to a dramatically different logic for centuries. With careful attention to how officials and subjects thought about the spaces they inhabited, ONeills work reveals the lasting influence of Crimea and its people on the Russian imperial system, and sheds new light on the precarious contemporary relationship between Russia and the famous Black Sea peninsula.